West Texas Hangs On Despite Order Targeting Judge Albright

In Q3 2022, the Western District of Texas retained its spot as the most popular district for all patent litigation and for litigation filed by NPEs. The District of Delaware was the top district for operating company litigation and held second place for all litigation. Delaware also remained in third place for NPE litigation, after being outpaced in the second quarter by the Eastern District of Texas (which once again held the number-two spot for NPE filings in the third quarter).

West Texas has held the top spot in the venue rankings since Q2 2020 as a result of divisional filing rules that, until recently, allowed plaintiffs to pick their division, guaranteeing that they would get the famously plaintiff-friendly District Judge Alan D. Albright when filing in Waco (where he is the only district judge). However, on July 25, Chief District Judge Orlando L. Garcia issued a targeted standing order establishing that all patent cases filed in the Waco Division will be randomly assigned among 12 of West Texas’s district judges, including Judge Albright.

Some industry observers speculated in the order’s immediate aftermath that the result would be a drop in Judge Albright’s caseload and that West Texas would, in turn, dip in the rankings. However, that does not appear to be the case: while there was an initial downturn in Western District NPE litigation, especially when factoring out the activity of one particularly litigious plaintiff, filings have since picked back up.

See RPX’s Q3 in Review for more on that trend, as well as further analysis on other key developments impacting patent litigation and the patent marketplace.